According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Ghana has 476,400 migrants and over one million Ghanaians living abroad.
"These international migrants, as well as Ghanaians residing abroad, are engines for social development in both their host communities and their communities of origin," the report stated.
Abibatou Wane, the IOM's Chief of Mission for Ghana, Benin, and Togo, said this at a ceremony in Accra yesterday to launch the IOM Ghana Country Strategy for 2022-2025.
Despite the government's accomplishments to date in addressing the country's migration problem, including the drafting of different policies and mainstreaming migration into the government's medium-term National Development Policy framework, she noted there was still much more work to be done.
Ms. Wane added that, in response to the need to do more, the IOM established a new strategy for Ghana in conjunction with the government and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Partnership Framework.
She noted that Ghana's migratory patterns were complicated as a country of origin, transit, and destination in the ECOWAS sub-region, stating that although some were drawn to the country for its relative stability, others departed due to a lack of economic possibilities.
What is included in the strategy?
The strategy, according to IOM Ghana's Chief of Mission, explained how the organization planned to respond to migratory patterns and their challenges to the government's goals through engagement with UN agencies, civil society, and the corporate sector.
She added that those goals will be achieved through six strategic priorities: immigration and border control, counter-trafficking, supported voluntary return and reintegration, migration and development, migration, health and emergency, readiness, response, and stabilization.
Ms. Wane explained that those six strategic priorities were linked to Ghana's national policy framework and that if implemented, they would help the government and people of Ghana leverage the positive contributions of migrants and migration to social and economic development while limiting the impact of negative drivers and other factors that led to unfavorable migration outcomes.
"Through this new policy, the IOM reaffirms its commitment to the notion that compassionate and orderly migration benefits both migrants and society," she added.
Migration has an impact on Ghana.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Chief Director of the ministry, Adelaide Anno-Kumi, the Minister for the Interior, Ambrose Dery, said Ghana was touched by all aspects of migration and mobility, including regular, irregular, refugee, human trafficking, and cross-border crimes.
He said that the country's young, who constituted the bulk of the population, continued to draw the government's attention to unemployment, which had been recognized as one of the issues driving Ghanaians to seek greener pastures through illegal migration.
Unfortunately, he continued, the government's efforts had been undermined by the COVID-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which had resulted in worldwide economic troubles.
"The ECOWAS subregion's crises, notably in Mali and the Sahel, create a variety of border management issues. "The ease with which rebels, weapons, and illicit materials are transported into the Sahel from Liberia demonstrates the insufficiency of established institutions in terms of border security management policies, agencies, laws, systems, and processes," he stated.
Mr. Dery, who unveiled the plan, thanked the IOM for assisting the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) in enforcing border security throughout the northern boundaries, the most recent project being the reconstruction of the Hamile border post in the Upper West Region.